Losing Touch
by rachel2502
Summary: Laley friendship.How they lose each other.Dedicated to anyone who has lost a friend.


I missed the days when it was just you and me against the world. I miss the days when we didn't care for the social circles in school, where we hung out and what we did. Most of all, I miss you. I guess I can't blame you. You joined the Ravens and became popular. And along the way, I became noticed too. We were no longer outcasts, no longer losers… we were no longer friends.

I wish I could catch that moment. That last free day under the sun. Just you and me. The last few days that I actually mattered to you. Do I still matter? I don't think so. If I did then we wouldn't be the way we are, would we?

I remember the day we met. It was at the old park, the one with the broken swings. Do you remember it, Luke? I was on the slides, willing myself to just slide down. My eyes were shut as I tried not to imagine the ground below. Even then, I was scared of heights. You came up behind me and after awhile you got bored of waiting and pushed me down. Not exactly the perfect beginning of a beautiful friendship but a beginning nevertheless.

We connected instantly. We didn't like the same stuff, you were more into books and basketball even then and I was more into… anything that attracted me at the moment. I was never consistent which made you laugh as I changed the posters of my room almost daily.

What happened to us? Along the way, we lost touch of each other. Don't get me wrong, I love my life now. I have the most amazing husband in the world, your half-brother Nathan Scott and you have Brooke Davis as your girlfriend. So, in a way it should have felt evened out, right? But somehow it doesn't.

I wonder, do you still think of me and the time we shared together? Or does it all feel like a dream, a past you can't remember?

It feels strange. One moment, we were on the mini golf course on top of your mom's café talking about random things and now… It makes me sad to think of how we lost each other. Sometimes I would open the old family albums and I would ponder on our past as I stare at the pictures of us. From the age of nine up until the age of seventeen. That's eight years, Luke. Eight years of going to the Lost and Found and claiming things that doesn't belong to us. Eight years of water balloon fights on the roof. Eight years of friendship…gone.

Maybe it was something I did. Maybe it was nothing at all. Maybe it was fate. Either way, it's too late to save us, right? We have gone too far to come back to each other.

I've tried. God knows how much I've tried to talk to you. Tell you how I felt. But every time, I am greeted with a curt nod and a forced smile and I feel like I'm just wasting your time. So I leave you. And you have never run after me, Luke. Not once.

Don't you still care about me? Don't I matter?

I pass you in the hallways and you're always surrounded by your group of ogling fans. Not once do you break away from them and come over to me. Not once. So, I wait till you past then I run to the safe arms of my husband and he holds me as I cry for you. I need you, Luke. I cried for you. But I guess you didn't.

It's been a year since we've spoken. Birthdays passed with no greeting, Christmas came and it was the first time in eight years that I had spent it without you. I waited for you to call. I thought you would. But you didn't. I baked a cake for you. A banana cake with whipped cream instead of icing, your favorite. After six hours of waiting, I realized you weren't coming.

I stopped waiting then. For the phone calls, for those days where we would spend the entire day together doing nothing at all. I stopped waiting for my best friend to care.

Why did you do it? Didn't you have anymore room in your heart for me? You might have been part of the elite group now and you might have Brooke Davis as your girlfriend, but didn't you want me too?

I guess not. I guess I should stop living in the past and move on. But it's hard for me to not need you anymore.

It's hard to let go.

I'm used to it now. How sad is that? I'm used to being forgotten by you.

I still see you sometimes. I sometimes stand by my locker as the same moment you pass by. Our eyes meet for a split second. And I suddenly remember our past again.

_Hey, Luke?_

_Yeah, Hales?_

_We will always be bestest best friends, won't we?_

_Of course Hales. Always._

You smile at me and I smile back. Then you walk off and I turn back to my locker. And just like that, we both return to our own lives. Lives without each other.

_Goodbye, Luke. I'll miss you._


End file.
